Search form

Soldiers of the Air, September 15, 1941

Description

Series 2 number 6 of a weekly radio program that aired on Portland radio station KOIN. This week's program follows recruiter, Bill "Butch" Harris, and his search to recruit men for the Quartermaster Corps.

Collections with this item

Details

Transcription

MUSIC:THEME "SECOND CONNECTICUT REGIMENT" (475) UP AND FADE TO BACKGROUND

ANNCR:This evening KOIN is pleased to cooperate with the United States

Army Recruiting Service in presenting another chapter in the life of Sergeant Bill Harris, soldier of the air.

MUSIC:THEME UP j-ND OUT

ANNCR:Each day there is delivered to Headquarters, United States Army

Recruiting Service in the Main Post Office Building, a bulletin indicating the current needs of Uncle Sam's regular army. And each day Sergeant Bill Harris pounces upon the list so eagerly that you'd think he alone was responsible for the national defense program. If the army needs cooks, Sergeant Harris finds them. If it happens to be mechanics, somehow he discovers them, but today the army needs trained men for the Quartermaster Corps, and for once Sergeant Harris is stumped. But you know how resourceful Bill Harris is, so (FADING) let's listen und see what's going on ----

SOUND:TELEPHONE BELL

FOSTER:Army Recruiting Service. Sergeant Foster speaking.

VOICE:(IN TELEPHONE) This is Georgo Daniels of the Savings Department

of the Rose City Fidelity Bank. May I speak to Sergeant Harris, please?

FOSTER:Sergeant Harris is on his way to the bank right now. He should

be there any minute.

VOICE:(IN TELEPHONE) Thanks. I'll see him here, then.

SOUND:CLICK OF RECEIVER. THEN FADE IN SOUND OF BUSINESS MACHINES AND WHEN SOUND IS ESTABLISHED FADE TO BACKGROUND ANDOUT AS CONVERSATION CONTINUES

GEORGE:There you are, Sergeant Harris, A Defense Bond,

BILL:Thunks. It took me quite a while to corral enough stamps but

GEORGE:(CURIOUSLY) How you soldiers manage to save anything on the wages you get is beyond me.

BILL:(LAUGHS) You don’t need to feel sorry for us. We don't do so bad. You forget that our wages, as you call them, are clear profit. He get our clothes, our food, our shelter

GEORGE:Yes, but look — what future is there in the army?

BILL:Are you serious, young man, or are you just trying to kid me?

GEORGE:(SOLEMNLY) I never was more serious in my life. I honestly want to know. You see well, the army is pretty important to me right now.

BILL:What makes it more important to you now than at any other time?

GEORGE:(CONFIDENTIALLY) Take a good look at me, Sergeant Harris.

BILL:Well now, let's see. Hm—m I can't see you too well behind that elegant iron grill, but

GEORGE:I'll stand up. Then you can see me better. There now, is that better?

BILL:(ADMIRINGLY) Say, you're quite a nan I Six feet if you’re an inch weigh about, let's see about

GEORGE:One hundred and seventy-five pounds.

BILL:(ADMIRINGLY) Good pair of shoulders, but

GEORGE:(DEFENSIVELY) What's the matter with my shoulders?

BILL:(LAUGHS) Nothing much except that your shoulders have sort of got the droops.

GEORGE:Your shoulders would have the droops too, if you were in my predicament, Sergeant Harris.2-2-2

BILL:That's a big word, predicament. You couldn’t by any chance mean just plain trouble, could you? Because if it's trouble you mean, I've got some of my own at the moment.

GEORGE:You can call it whatever you want, but it's serious to me, When I asked you to take u look at me, I didn’t mean just to see how tall I am and how much I weigh. I thought maybe you'd see me as I see myself.

BILL:And how do you see yourself?

GEORGE:(WITH PRIDE, YET RUEFULLY) I see myself as a successful young business man, twenty-seven years old, single, head of the Savings Department in un old established bank, ambitious to continue in the business world, but

BILL:(INTERRUPTING) Not bad'. Not bud at all —

GEORGE:Not bad'. ’That’s good about it?

BILL:’Veil, Mr. Daniels, seems to me you've sort of been getting along all right. A lot of young men at twenty-seven would be glad to swap places with you.

GEORGE:You won't say that when I finish telling you my --- predicament.

BILL:(LAUGHING) Predicament, is it? Well, Mr. Daniels, get on with your predicament, because I'm u business man too, and my business recruiting

GEORGE:(IMPATIENTLY) Recruiting business'. That's what I'm trying to get at. I was trying to tell you that it took me nine years to work into this job, and now —- blooey just like that I'm going to lose everything I've worked so hard for, just because I've got to serve a year in the army.

BILL:(SYMPATHETICALLY) Well, now, that's too bad. But I thought jobs were to be kept open for the fellows in service

3-3-3

GEORGE:Sure, sure, sure. Jobs will be kept open, if you have a job when you are inducted.

BILL:That's easy. You've got a job, You are inducted and serve a year and you come back to your job.

GEORGE:(SARDONICALLY LAUGHING) Sounds simple, doesn't it. And you talk about trouble'. All the trouble you've got is to sign up a few guys in the regular armyguys that already want to sign up '. If I could convince Jimmy Randle that it's better for me to enlist now in the Quartermaster's Corps where my business experience

GEORGE:He's the president of this bank. He's my best friend and he's also my boss. (RUSHING ALONG) And he's threatened to fire me if I enlist and then I wouldn't have a job to come back to. He says it's bad enough for me to waste one year of my life exercising my feet instead of my head and that if I'm crazy enough to enlist he'll fire me

GEORGE:That's right. (SADLY) But he might as well be eighty the way he's been acting lately, (FONDLY) But Jimmy's all right, really. He means to do what he thinks is best for me, (ADMIRINGLY) He's one of these dynamic little guys, sharp and quick and peppery. Makes up his mind -- bang '. — just like that when things hit him

right,

4-4-4

BILL:(LAUGHS) But you haven’t managed to hit him right? Is that it?

GEGRGE:That’s it. But I've got an idea. He seems to think the regular army is all drilling and marching and firing cannon, but I know better. He says a business man should stick to business; that the army is for men with more in their heels than in their heads. That's the reason I phoned you a while ago. I thought you could probably furnish me with the figures and I'd tabulate them and make an impressive chart and oh well, you know the way bankers do and, perhaps, he’d be so impressed he'd insist on my enlisting

BILL:I don't quite follow you, but if it’s army statistics you want, I've got some right here in my pocket.

GEORGE:You'd understand what I mean if you knew Jimmy Randle. He likes to run things, run the bank, run people why he'd like to run the army if he thought it was a big enough business. Ch, but what's the use? Give me those figures, will you?

JIMMY:Can you help? No one can help'. I've got to make a speech and you sit there yapping figures. (BALEFULLY) If it hadn’t been for you, I'd never got roped into this speech.

SOUND:BANGING OF RECEIVER

GEORGE:He hung up on me. He's got to make a speech. And he says it's all my fault.

BILL:(SYMPATHETICALLY) "jell, don't look so glum about it.

GEORGE:(SADLY) He wouldn't even listen to my figures. I guess it's hopeless. I'm just fool enough to believe the army needs me, and I'm convinced that I can learn some things about business in the army; things a man can't learn in six months or a year — things it takes years to work cut.

BILL:You know, Mr. Daniels, it's sort of funny — me listening to you tell me the things I've so often tried to explain to ether fellows. It's as if you were trying to interest me in enlisting.

GEORGE:'Jell, give me the rest of those figures and maybe I can convince Jimmy I'm worth more to Uncle Sam than I am to him.

BILL:O.K. Now let's see — oh yes -- Army meals cost something like six hundred thousand dollars each day.

BILL:I think I'll be getting along, Mr. Daniel. If you ever do decide to enlist, look me up in the Main Post Office Building. Meantime, here's some figures for your boss (BREAKING ORF) Say, who's this guy coming over here? Looks like the maddest bunch of midget 1 ever saw.

JIMMY:(FADING IN AND SPEAKING WITH CHOLERIC VEHEMENCE) Of all the incompetent, uninformed — the stuff of the Rose CityGeorge '. Of all the useless accumulation of — George '.

GEORGE:(QUIETLY) Yes, Mr. Randle.

JIMMY:Don't Mister Randle me'. All I've heard for the last fifteen minutes is (MOCKINGLY SARCASTIC) "Yes, Mister Randle", but when I ask for accurate information, fox' cold statistics, do I get them? (RUSHING ON) NO'. (STOPS FOR WANT OF BREATH)

GEORGE:(SOLEMNLY) No, Mr. Randle.

JIMMY:No what?

GEORGE:No breath. You're all out of breath, Jimmy, and you're probably excited over nothing

JIMMY:(SARCASTICALLY) I'm excited over nothing'. It's nothing at all. All I have to do is make a speech, a speech in just exactly thirty minutes, a speech for which I need accurate, up to the minute information., and no one(HEAVILY SARCASTIC)no one in this bank that employees three hundred people can give me what I want.

GEORGE:What kind of information is it you need?

JIMMY:(AS IF TRYING DESPERATELY TO CONTROL HIMSELF) I need information on the United States Army. How many are there

8-8-8

BILL:Many what?

JIMMY:Who are you?

BILL: JIMMY.*Me? I’m Sergeant Harris of the United States Army Recruiting Service. (ACCUSINGLY) Oh, you are, uro you? Been up here trying to talk George Daniels into enlisting, haven't you?

BILL: JIMMY:Well, not exactly. You see, I came up to buy this Defense Saving Bond, that Mr. Daniels just made out for me. (BECOMING INTERESTED) You bought a bond? What with?

BILL:Savings stamps I'd bought.

JIMMY:Soldiers buying Defense Bonds, eh?

GEORGE:Why not? Soldiers don’t do so bad. They get their clothes, their food, and shelter besides their salaries.

JIMMY:They do? How many of then are there?

GEORGE:As of June first, nineteen hundred and forty-one, there were one million, three hundred and sixty-two thousand men under urms -

JIMMY:(INTERRUPTING) That’s a lot of men. It would take a lot of supplies to provide for them.

GEORGE:(ASIF DISINTERESTED) Yes, I guess it would. Something like a million pounds of moat every day, two million pounds of bread,, and, of course, for a Cavalry Division alone it takes over two hundred thousand pounds of hay and grain every day and

JIMMY:Give me that paper, George. That's exactly the information I need for my speech. Here, give it to me*

JIMMY:Has Uncle Sam got the right men running his business competent men?

SILL:Well, he could use a few more fellows like Mr. Daniel here.

GEORGE:That’s what I've been saying.

JIMMY:Fellows like George? What about fellows like me?

BILL:(ASTONISHED) Like you, Mr. Randle?

JIMMY:Sure, me like me. Say, I can run circles around George Daniels any day of the week.

GEORGE: JIMMY:But, Jimmy, Don't interfere, George. Soldier

BILL: JIMMY:Sergeant Harris Sergeant Harris, make out the papers right away. As soon us I get this speech over with, I'll be down to sign them.

BILL: JIMMY:What papers? The enlistment papers, of course.

GEORGE:(HAPPILY) For me?

JIMMY:No, for me. If this army businessis us big us these figures indicate, it needs me. You stay here and run the bank, George. I'm going to enlist.

MUSIC:THEME UP AND OUT

ANNCR:And so wo leave Sergeant Harris signing up another recruit for the regular United States Army at 323 Main post Office Building. Next week at this same hour KOIN will present another in this series of Soldiers of the Air. Tonight's program was written by the Oregon Writers' Project of the Work Projects Administration and produced by members of the Youth Theatre Guild. The cast

included;

(CONT.) ANNCR:Listen again next Monday night nt ten fifteen over this station when you will again hear